Independents' day: Romney looks to swing voters for salvation

The pre-election battle for perceived momentum extended Wednesday into a public dispute over whether President Barack Obama or Republican nominee Mitt Romney could claim an advantage with prized independent voters.

As a new series of battleground state polls emerged this morning -- showing Romney leading Obama among likely voters who identify as independents by 5 points in Florida, 6 points in Ohio and a whopping 21 points in Virginia -- Republicans argued the president's political arithmetic wasn't as sound as the Obama team contends.

At a campaign event in Tampa Bay, Florida, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney promotes a five-point plan for growing the economy.

Republicans on Wednesday morning circulated emails pointing out Obama's disadvantage among independents to call into question Obama's strength in several battleground states.

"We think that across the battleground state, we have a lead among independent voters," Obama senior adviser David Axelrod said on a conference call Wednesday with reporters in response. But, he added: "That's not true across every battleground state."

The Obama strategist did say, though, that the campaign believes the president is winning enough of the share of the independent vote to emerge victorious on Nov. 6.

What follows is a look at the breakdown of the independent vote in 2004 and 2008 exit polls in arguably the three biggest battleground states, along with the share of the electorate made up by self-described independent voters. Sometimes the winner of these state won the independent and sometimes they didn’t.